Monday rewatch: WSU upsets No. 1 UCLA in 1988

Last week, in the Monday Rewatch, we went down memory lane with the 1988 Aloha Bowl. But, that is not even the best rewatch game of the 1988 season. So today, we will go back to 1988 and this time it is Washington State’s upset over then No. 1 UCLA.

For a 1988 game, we have relatively decent video quality, and of course Keith Jackson on the call.

There was a lot happening in this game, but for the Cougs not much of it was good for the first 34 minutes of that video. It was at that point UCLA scored its final touchdown to take a 27-6 lead just minutes into the third quarter.

From there on, the video gets a lot more enjoyable. Tim Rosenbach led the comeback for the Cougars, finishing with 272 passing yards and 2 touchdowns. The Cougars scored three unanswered touchdowns to tie the game.

UCLA went on to take a 30-27 lead in the fourth quarter, but that is when WSU executed a drive you are unlikely to ever see from the 2021 Cougars. At the 52:30 mark of the game, the Cougars get the ball for what would be a go-ahead touchdown drive. A drive that featured 13 consecutive runs. The Cougars started the drive at the 35-yard line and ran, then ran again, and again and again. Rich Swinton got busy with a couple of solid gains. Rosenbach was also in the action. Swinton capped the drive with a 1-yard TD run.

That was hardly the final action of the game. The Cougars had to hang on for dear life in the final minute. The Bruins got the ball back with less than a minute to play but quickly advanced the ball deep into WSU territory. Troy Aikman and the Bruins had the ball 1st-and-Goal at the Cougar 6-yard line with 36 seconds to play. That drive starts at roughly the 1:10:00 mark of the video.

Four Aikman incompletions later the Cougar victory was finally sealed.

If you only have 30 seconds, skip ahead to the 1:14:11 mark to watch the final incompletion.

Go Cougs.